Resi to compete in Olympic GS and slalom

Resi Stiegler of Jackson Hole has been selected to ski in the Olympic giant slalom Tuesday.

Stiegler will be one of four U.S. women to compete in GS. She already had been slated to race in the slalom on Friday.

The giant slalom will begin at 10:30 p.m. MST tonight; organizers have moved up the race because the forecast is calling for snow and rain later in the afternoon. The runs are slated for 9:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. Sochi time Tuesday.

NBCOlympics.com will stream the race live, but cable subscribers in Jackson will not be able to watch because Charter Communications has failed to provide an authentication code for its mountain states customers. (Try here for live streaming via European broadcasts.)

NBC will televise the women’s giant slalom in prime time, part of a medley of coverage that starts at 6 p.m. MST Tuesday.

Also competing for the United States in giant slalom are Julia Mancuso, who skied through a blizzard to win gold in the event in 2006; slalom world champion Mikaela Shiffrin; and Megan McJames, who trained on Snow King in 2010 prior to the Vancouver Olympics.

Update 2/18: Stiegler skied two solid runs on a soggy, rain-soaked course and finished 29th, second best among Americans.

Starting 41st, she was at a considerable disadvantage as the wet course rapidly deteriorated. Even many of the top 10 or 15 skiers were several seconds slower on the first run than winner Tina Maze of Slovenia, who went first.

Shiffrin, the 18-year-old from Vail, continued to amaze and placed fifth. Mancuso skied off course near the bottom of the first run after hitting a puddle and water sprayed her goggles. McJames was one place behind Stiegler, in 30th.

After the first run, Stiegler shared on her Facebook page a photo that had been making the rounds in Jackson Hole, a shot of friends and fans gathered beneath the tram at Teton Village wishing her good luck.

“I feel all the amazing energy!” she wrote. “First run was tough. Not an easy race. Can’t see anything …”

She joked that she needed a wetsuit and tear off lenses for her goggles, but was “smiling and ready for second run,” she wrote. “Thanks for the love.”

After some trial and error, many of us who are not English Premier League soccer fans finally figured out how to stream the race live on sportlemon. Hopefully our computers are not totally infected with Russian malware.

The first run of the slalom starts at 5:45 a.m. MST Feb. 21, and the second run is at 9:15 a.m. I’ll post a link to the video stream as soon as it is listed.